


Polaris Around Your Name

by montreal



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Car Accidents, Character Death, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vulnerable Nigel (Charlie Countryman)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:21:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27755272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/montreal/pseuds/montreal
Summary: Losing Adam is something that he will never forgive.
Relationships: Nigel (Charlie Countryman)/Adam Raki
Comments: 9
Kudos: 51
Collections: MonthlyRareMeat





	Polaris Around Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> This was written because I was an angsty adult and also because of that one conversation I had with Joa. After spending days and night writing this, finally I've finished it. It might be confusing since there's a lot of time jump between present and past so make sure to pay attention on that. 
> 
> Sorry for any grammatical mistakes and I hope you enjoy this one and then, come cry with me, okay? Kudos and comment are appreciated. I love you guys so much!

The tattoo is mostly for a reminder.

Losing Gabi is just another proof of his failure to be a good person (husband, now _ex-husband_ ) after the first one, which is losing his mother to sickness. That he has failed to be the man his Mamă had wanted him to be; a man that was able to protect their loved ones. He had failed to protect both of the most important women in his life. But now, there’s nothing he could do ( _“it’s too late, Nigel,”_ ) or he _could_ change. Nothing to apologize for either. A man of failure is what Nigel sees in himself when he stands naked in front of the mirror: scarred thighs and stomach, littered with marks from different weapons. 

But, Adam is different.

He’s not a woman, but losing him feels as bad. ( _Worse._ )

Losing Adam is something that he will never forgive. 

On the verge of desperation and death, Nigel had given his life on a silver platter. He had thought that perhaps this was his _end_ of everything. Until Adam showed up with his big baby blue eyes and stiff mannerism, that Nigel had never seen before. Right then and there, Nigel knew: Adam is different.

... that’s how it ended up on his arm, written around Polaris, a reminder and a promise: _Adam._

\--

Sometimes Nigel sits in the living room and stares. Stares until his eyes sting, stares and stares and hopes that his ears will catch the drapes of footsteps from the stairs, and the soft monotone voice calling his name.

It never comes.

\--

In the void of an apartment in New York, Nigel lies awake.

He dreams of warmth enveloping his skin.

But mostly, they’re glimpses, covered in red and whimpers. Of hands attempting to reach for him, gripping his arm like a lifeline. A painful sob (“where were you, Nigel,”) splitting his skull, reverberates around the chambers of his mind as he feels it caves into his consciousness, then like a sharp sting of a needle piercing his skin, it jolts him awake. There are sharp gasps and pants when Nigel’s eyes swallow his surroundings, hands grasping for the source of warmth next to him; solid body and soft skin, only to be met with emptiness, and cold bed. The weighted blanket does nothing to him, now. Only a burden to his chest when he snakes his way under, hoping for comfort around his lonely shaking body. 

Sometimes he doesn’t dream at all. 

And though it’s unsettling, Nigel prefers that rather than a cold body lying limp on a concrete, unmoving. He's alone, now. Just like Adam, who died alone.

\--

After five years, they fell off the wagon.

Or, perhaps it was _Nigel_ who fell off the wagon.

As they were riding in their lives, and for once, Nigel had spent every day of his life with determination true to his heart. He had never been this serious, even Darko acknowledged the changes, the effect that Adam had brought to his friend. Even Darko knew that this was _it_ for him (“ _Adam’s good for you, brother. Keep him,_ ”) while jokingly said that perhaps Nigel should lock him in chains; that maybe this was how Nigel found his ending.

The universe was cruel, Nigel had decided. 

Nigel lost Adam to an accident. 

It happened exactly fourteen days before their fifth anniversary which felt like a mockery to him from whatever’s above. Funny thing was, Nigel was not a believer; never been one. He never knew what _creature_ God was and how he did His things and whether he was really _up_ there. Or, him believing anything about the god-fucking-damn universe. But he did know that he was just a speck of dirt, wasting his life on a planet called Earth. He didn’t believe in the universe doing everything _for_ him. It just didn’t make sense to him. There was no logical way that it did such things. But if it did:

This was the worst it had ever done to him.

At first, he didn’t feel particularly anything when he heard the news coming out from the doctors. The words were hanging in the air as he tried to grasp the reality of what was truly happening. 

His hands were shaking.

( _“I’m so sorry, sir, but we couldn’t save him.”_ )

Rage was the first thing he felt, burning up from his chest to his head through his spine. He remembered holding one of the doctors by his collar, pressing him to the nearest wall with a thud ( _“there must be something, something you could fucking do!”_ ) as he babbled, begged, _shouted_ . The rest was a blur. It was all just rage and red, red and... _pain_. So much pain until he couldn’t pick apart which was which. 

So much pain that his mind wandered to the place he had never been. Licking his lips, one hand gripping his gun as the other laid limp on his stomach while his eyes counted the stars from Adam’s constellation lamp, one by one like a ticking bomb until he couldn’t remember if today was yesterday or the day before yesterday.

In the end, he couldn’t do it.

Nigel spent his time getting high on the day of Adam’s funeral.

\--

A few months after this, Nigel still feels like drowning.

Because the tragedy is probably this:

Adam had always been careful. Refusing to take his own car, and instead, he chose an uber every morning for work, and sometimes, when Nigel insisted, he’d rode with him. 

He had slipped away in a blink of an eye. Adam was once in Nigel’s grip, tight and promising. And one day he was gone. Just like that, he was gone and Nigel didn’t come prepared. Didn’t even realize something bad was coming to hit them; hit _Adam._

His mother’s death news brought shock to him. Gabi’s cheating news brought anger; bursting in him, exploding every time he saw that cunt of a man standing beside her. Then, there was Adam. This time it had built up in several steps. It was disbelief, but he panicked. There was worry underneath it as he ran to the hospital. After that, it was anger, which lasted long enough. It was days and perhaps weeks. Then, it dulled by time. The thing about anger was that it took a lot of energy in order to form a proper emotion. Nigel didn’t eat enough; didn’t sleep enough. He only took beers and coffee and sometimes drugs when the pain was too big for him to handle, even until now.

To this point, Nigel spends his day in a blurry motion.

He hasn’t visited the club for a long time. Gabi and Darko still come to check in on him every couple of days, bringing food and drinks. He does shower though it probably two times a week, with an angered Darko on his heels, following him with that frown and concern etched on his face. Cursing him off until Nigel enters the bathroom, only for Nigel to stand in front of the mirror, staring back at his ghost of reflection and feeling a part of him die a little more at the sight of the space-themed toothbrush in the glass. 

So, the tragedy is: despite what Adam did, all the fuss and rush, Adam died anyway. 

(Whatever they did in the past, was all useless.)

\--

“I know what losing someone feels like, Nigel,” explains Gabi one afternoon, her hands are soft with affection against his skin, grounding his wandering mind. From the corner of his eyes, he can see the distant look in her eyes as she tries to reminiscence the past, flips them open like a book. There’s a look on her face that is indescribable, but he keeps his mouth shut. His own head miles away contemplating other things, such as pulling triggers from his gun he hides under his pillow. 

He wishes he’s as calm as Gabi.

But now, all memories with Adam only cause him pain.

Sighing, Gabi continues, “you were there when my father died.”

Nigel remembers that one. Although perhaps not all of them because after all these years, the past now is chipping off his brain like nail polish. Slowly but surely, forgotten. But he does remember the highlights of it, the sadness hanging on the air, choking him. He doesn’t remember the pain of that day. He’s numb.

“But you prepared for his death,” he mutters, not even looking at her direction, “you fucking knew, he was gonna die at the end because he was fucking sick,” and it was harsh, but he doesn’t take it back, doesn’t even feel a glint of guilt because of it. Somehow he’s more amazed, applauses himself internally for being able to come up with _something_. “Mine’s different, Gabi.”

“There’s nothing you could do, Nigel,” she says, despaired.

There, Nigel snaps. “There’s definitely something I could fucking do,” slapping away the hands that rest on his arm, startling her in the process. It’s not helping now that his head has started pounding inside his skull, like a hammer to its nail. “A fucking car crushed him to death. I could’ve prevented that from happening.”

“What would you do, then?”

It’s a challenge.

Gabi looks at him with wide and hard eyes, wet on the corner.

Mostly what she feels is rage, piling up like a burden until it presses against her chest, making her unable to breathe. Adam’s death was a loss for everyone. It’s unfair not only for Nigel but also for Gabi. She had seen Adam like her own brother. He was the most honest friend she never knew she needed, and she trusted him with Nigel; knew that Adam would take care of her ex-husband the way she could never do in the past. But now Adam’s gone.

Adam’s _gone_ and has left two broken people.

“I don’t know – fucking lock him in the fucking house so he won’t go out,” Nigel mumbles, closing his eyes, and pressing thumbs against his temple as the rest of his fingers pull his hair angrily. 

“You know you can’t do that. He won’t let you.”

Nigel knows that. 

But it feels good sometimes to deny it.

(To pretend that he can save him. If he’s given the chance.)

“I’ll do whatever I could to keep him safe.” 

“You can’t cheat death, Nigel.”

“ _can,_ ” he admits quietly, almost immediately. The glance that Gabi spare _pains_ him, a silent reminder that the universe is fucking cruel and Nigel is just one of the pions made to be played by it. Once again, he’s being prompted by how much of a failure he is. Tight-jaw, Nigel continues, “I got a fucking bullet went through my head and I survived. You tell me I ain’t cheat death? I _dodged_ it away ‘cause even when I’m dying, I’m stubborn as fuck.”

Everything is painful, he misses Adam constantly.

He still doesn’t glance at her.

“Nigel...”

Perhaps it’s the way he stares with his dull eyes that Gabi’s gaze suddenly changes as if she knows where the conversation is headed. And she’s trying her best to hold him down, stopping him from jumping into the cliff by a silent call of his name.

It’s useless, though, because Nigel opens his mouth, staring directly at her. Numb. “And he could’ve, too.” He whispers, voice barely audible. Adam died alone on the fucking street. Alone without Nigel. “But he couldn’t... ‘cause I wasn’t there.”

Sadness doesn’t look good on her, Nigel thinks.

And yet, here, Nigel has made her cry. 

He wishes he could, too, so that she wouldn’t feel alone. But his tears have dried, because they were never there to begin with. There’s nothing to waste. No tears because he’s numb. He’s _dead_. The silence stretches between them, thick and too eerie. ( _Adam’s dead. He’s dead. He’s fucking dead, and you haven’t shed a single fucking tear._ ) It sets something inside his gut, clawing and flaring inside him, spreading like a plague, dangerous, _deathly_.

The sky darkens, Gabi’s cries have turned into sniffles.

(Nigel is still numb.)

\--

Back then when he had Adam, everything was simpler.

Adam, who wrapped his arms around Nigel’s waist when he started zoning out in front of the mirror. Adam, who drew little stars on each of his scars then proceeded to kiss them with such love. Adam, who would card his fingers in Nigel’s hair when he had his headache, soft and grounding. Little tugs on the strands of hair to remind him that Adam was there. Adam, who was dead, now; who was fucking dead, buried six feet down the ground. Bringing everything with him to the coffin, hugged against his chest. Nigel’s heart, too – Adam had brought it with him.

He rests his head on the floor, forehead cooling down against the tile. The pounding of a headache still stays inside, thumping, and when he closes his eyes, he pictures Adam, crouching next to him. He imagines Adam’s palm on his head, settling Nigel’s head carefully on his lap as he cards his fingers through his hair, a glass of water and Nigel’s medicine beside him, because sometimes a single move pains him, triggering the constant ache in his skull, so usually, they wait. They wait until it dies down, loud _thump, thump, thump,_ turns into a faint hum.

Sometime later, Nigel imagines; a conversation. Between him and his darling. Adam calling his name once the pain went away:

“Nigel,”

“I am sleeping, gorgeous,”

“Then, why are you replying?”

“Because you called me,”

“Technically, when you’re sleeping, you wouldn’t know that,”

“ _Smartass,_ ”

Adam giggles because he had learned how to make small jokes; because he had protested one day that he did understand jokes, although it might take some time for him to comprehend the meaning.

... and when Nigel opens his eyes, his darling greets, shyly: “Hello, Nigel.”

Then, all of the sudden, it goes away as soon as he goes back to himself, blinking his eyes into awakeness. His head isn’t pounding anymore, yet he’s too scared to fucking move, in case it comes back. It’s in a time like this, where he wishes he was dead. With his head resting on the cold tile as blood trickles to the floor, paint it red just like Adam painted the goddamn concrete. 

The only thing that’s keeping him from doing that is the doubt; that he won’t see Adam in the afterlife. Or, Gabi’s words ringing inside his head (“Adam would hate to see you like this, Nigel,”) though he precisely knows that Gabi doesn’t know anything about his darling. It’s just the talk so he won’t kill himself.

Adam doesn’t believe in heaven and hell.

So does Nigel.

\--

It's a form of punishment.

These days he never sleeps. For his blood is clogged with drugs and caffeine. Though mostly the truth is because Nigel is scared of sleeping, falling asleep, _what–the fuck–ever_.

Because the hardest part is when he wakes up. In those hazes of the unknown, brain barely awake, he would reach out to the other side of the bed because it is what he would do. Because Adam is imprinted in his mind and his body like a permanent tattoo, although perhaps the metaphor isn’t even enough. His moves have lingered around Adam, so it’s instinctive. Because Adam is his guidance in life. Adam is his everything and when he _realizes_ , palm dry and empty, he was met with disappointment once again, curling his fist. Tears stopping before they could even leave his eyes, hanging right on his eyelashes. He wishes he was high as a kite, too ignorant to care, but no; he’s always sober when he wakes up. Because the universe loves to remind him that Adam will never come back. 

Nigel never goes back to sleep after that.

\--

Tracing his tattoo absentmindedly, Nigel finds himself in the park this night. The raccoons somehow don’t come out like they used to. Perhaps the stench of his sadness has gone too far, it scares them. When he blinks, he’s walking with no direction in his head. The stars shine bright and it feels like a mockery. Yet, he stops. He stops to stare.

“I knew you’d come back for me, star,” he whispers, a single tear falls, trickling down to his cheek and he ignores it before finally making his way back home.

\--

Turns out, it’s a real tear.

Wet against his fingertips once it reaches his chin, drying up slowly. As he locks the apartment door, he walks past the kitchen and straight for the bedroom, feeling drained. Perhaps it’s the drugs wearing down; he reaches back down the ground as the drugs leave his useless body behind. Perhaps it’s his body, finally gives up. Many possibilities are hanging in the air as he takes off his shirt, leaving only his boxers, and makes his way to the bed. 

Nigel stares at the stars on the ceiling, shining faintly in the dark of his room. He thinks of Adam’s eyes, shining bright with awe the first time Nigel put the stars on their bedroom ceiling, turning it into their own constellation. It wasn’t the best. Some of the stars were crooked because Nigel was never a careful person but Adam loved it nonetheless. 

Staring at them with his own starry eyes, mouth parted.

And suddenly it hits him; the emotion, all of them.

He cries. 

Building up slow like a ticking clock, and then rattling as all of them come down, bursting. His cries turn into full-on sobs, he even trashes the bed. His chest heaves so hard, trembles every time he inhales. There are snots and spits and tears; tears that he had denied and kept for so long because he’s angry. He’s fucking angry. Towards everyone, towards the goddamn world. Towards _himself_. 

This time he falls asleep from exhaustion.

He dreams of their own private constellation. Of Adam’s starry eyes and gentle smiles.

\--

Polaris around Adam's name.

Because Adam is ( _was_ ) his guide.

Because he knows that Adam is the brightest star ( _his star_ ) and even when he’s gone, body cold buried six feet under, he always will be his goddamn fucking star.

\--

By night, with dark sky barely seen from the window, the curtains waving shyly side to side from the wind; New York City is loud on the world outside. The silence in the room feels sincere, accepting in his ears and then, there’s Adam sitting there on the bed, Nigel’s head on his lap. His darling smiles when he opens his eyes...

... and he’s still there when he blinks his eyes. Nigel doesn’t feel high, yet probably he _is_. There is a brush of a kiss on his temple when Nigel intertwines their fingers, and although Adam probably will fade away the time he wakes up tomorrow, he cherishes this moment as he closes his eyes, a soft voice whispered through the air, _forgiving_.

“I’m here, Nigel.”


End file.
